Kitchen Remodel Photos Round I

It's been about six months since my last blog post...but I really do have a good excuse, one word: wedding.  I am now officially now a Mrs!  My husband Jared and I got married last month, took a long honeymoon, and are now starting the fall and married life off right with the remodel to build the kitchen we (or I mostly...) have always dreamed of.  "Happy wife, happy life" Jared says to everyone....I guess that's what he signed up for marrying an interior designer.  What a wonderful sport and supportive husband he is!
The burning question: why are you remodeling a perfectly nice, one year old kitchen?  We are remodeling to create more space for entertaining; incorporating the largest island possible as it seems to be the social point and anchor of any great kitchen.  Guests love to gather around a kitchen island, especially with good food and wine.  Also, I've always wanted shaker style, white cabinets with SubZero/Wolf appliances - I love to cook so this is a huge deal.  We knew when we purchased the house last summer, we wanted to re-do the kitchen and we finally made it happen with alot of research and planning.   I will be documenting the progress of the remodel here on my blog.  I  thought it would be fun for my friends and family (several in which located in Michigan and Boston) to see it come together step by step through the remodeling process here in our Georgia home. I hope you enjoy following along as much as I do!

The Goal:  Completion and ready for full use before Thanksgiving weekend, I can't wait to cook my first real, huge turkey with all of the trimmings! 

Timeline:  Week #1:
Tuesday, August 28, 2012:  Cabinet Delivery
5:00 pm:  The cabinets arrived in a huge semi-truck.  It took the truck driver about a half an hour and a 20 point turn to back it in to the driveway. 

7:00 pm:  Didn't think all of the cabinet boxes would fit in our front living room (which is currently empty) but fortunately they did, just barely with two boxes to spare in the foyer.

Monday, September 3, 2012: Labor Day / Moving Day
4:00 pm: After a restful Saturday and Sunday,  Jared and I celebrated Labor Day in true fashion;  with a lot of manual labor & work.  We spent the afternoon moving all of our "important kitchen gadgets" that Jared "accidentally" called junk, out of our existing cabinets to prepare for the construction.  Three hours later and 50 + trips up and down two flights of stairs, we turned the media room and upstairs bathroom into our new temporary kitchen and pantry storage.  After all of that stair climbing, our calf muscles are screaming today that's for sure...

Tuesday September 4, 2012: Demo Day
8:00 am to 6:00 pm : Exciting day (and our 1 month wedding anniversary) - The contractors show up to start the demolition of the old kitchen.  We re-located my office into one of the spare bedrooms upstairs and Jared worked from his laptop in the Guest Bedroom, to avoid at least a little bit of the noise.  The photos show how we will gain about 50% more space with the new layout.  Knocking out the mud room wall, mud room closet, and the walk-in pantry (don't worry, we have full height pantry cabinets to replace the storage).  Check out these photos that were going on during the demo and existing cabinet removal...who knew a mess could be so much fun...

  The plumber comes tomorrow to relocate the water lines (red and blue tubes you see in the photo, that were in the existing mud room wall) to the back wall.  The electrician will also be here to relocate the wiring and switches you see hanging from the ceiling.  And the floor guy to quote the areas to be refinished where the old walls once lived.  Only one small snaffu today, no working garage doors tonight due to a wire short circuit, but this in scheme of things I thought that was great. Automatic garage doors back up and running tomorrow....

6:00 pm:  The pile of trash, drywall and wood scraps from the end of a full day of demo, woo hoo!  Don't worry neighbors, the contractors have a junk removal company who picks up the trash pile every night from our driveway....

More updates to come in the next few days...  After eating my take out pizza and drinking wine in a Solo cup, I'm so excited that I am going to sleep in my dusty but much more spacious kitchen tonight, goodnight folks!


....kidding about the sleeping part of course :)